Taylor Tomlinson: Have It All

Have It All (2024) is Taylor Tomlinson’s third stand-up comedy special for Netflix. The hour-plus special, shot in Washington, D. C., focuses on a myriad of subjects — many of them stemming from questioning if Tomlinson can “have it all”, as in, the work, life, and love balance that society often wonders if women can pull off.

During the special, Tomlinson covers a variety of topics, including but not limited to: weird things she can now buy with the money from her success, religious trauma and the sex talk, parenting herself, depression, trying to teach hot men empathy, and turning thirty and the pressure it has put on her friends’ group. 

At one point, she discusses navigating her newfound bisexuality and goes through a run-down of the many points members of the bi community have gone through: straight people asking her to “prove it”, the difficulties of getting women to like her, and how to hit on them, internalized biphobia and sexism, being afraid of being bad at same-sex intimacy due to her inexperience as an adult, and not even knowing being bi was an option as a child.

The section of the special about her way of being bi lasts around five minutes, but it has a clear focus and a slew of relatable jokes. And she uses the term “bisexual” freely and often throughout the bit, which is great as far as bi representation goes.

While Tomlinson is not the sole bi comic out on the circuit, (see: Mae Martin, Joe Lycett, Fern Brady, etc), she is a very prominent one and one of the few willing to talk about exploring this side of herself as part of her work. As such, it makes for a good and (still) rare example of bisexuality in stand-up comedy specials.